Senate panel clears way for subpoenas in probe of U.S. attorney firings

WASHINGTON — The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday cleared the way for subpoenas compelling five Justice Department officials and six of the U.S. attorneys they fired to tell the story of the purge that has prompted demands for the ouster of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

The voice vote to authorize the panel to issue subpoenas amounts to insurance against the possibility that Gonzales could retract his permission to let the aides testify voluntarily, or impose strict conditions.

The committee also postponed for a week a vote on whether to authorize subpoenas of top aides to President Bush who were involved in the eight firings, including political adviser Karl Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers and deputy White House Counsel William K. Kelley.

Rove on Thursday chalked the uproar up to partisan games, noting that President Clinton dismissed all 93 U.S. attorneys and brought in his own team at the beginning of his presidential term.

"The president's entitled to do it," Rove said during a speech at Troy University. "This in my mind is a lot of politics."

But Democrats charge that the administration singled out some of its own nominees because they chafed at the president's priorities, to make way for White House allies.

"Eight U.S. attorneys who did not play ball with the political agenda of this administration were dropped from the team," said Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois. "We have a right to ask what that political agenda was and whether or not it was a reasonable firing and dismissal."

The committee approved subpoena power over key Justice Department officials involved in the firings: Michael Elston, Kyle Sampson, Monica Goodling, Bill Mercer and Mike Battle.

Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff, quit this week. Elston is staff chief to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and Mercer is associate attorney general. Goodling is Gonzales' senior counsel and White House liaison, and Battle is the departing director of the office that oversees all 93 U.S. attorneys.

Gonzales has said he would allow the aides still at the Justice Department to testify voluntarily.